Ch. 4: There Be Dragons
Back to Arheled Bell loved being back here on the lake. She loved summer. At least, when it was like this she did: soft, very warm but not too hot unless you sat in the sun all day like Mom was trying. Bell preferred to do her sunbathing only when warming up after playing in the water for the previous few hours. Forest would join her sometimes, but he was an odd sort, not really much on swimming. He preferred to lie in the shade, staring up into the trees, or up in the trees, perched on some fantastically high limb and looking absently off into nothing. Bell would smile and shake her head at him. He was an interesting brother. She tiptoed up behind him today, barefoot on the grass, a pail of water in her hand. He was lying on his stomach, absorbed in something in front of him that she couldn’t see. A grin of pure mischief on her face, she threw the water at him. Seeing him suddenly all wet was hilariously funny, especially the frozen, stunned look on his face as he got up. “You looked like such a perfect target!” howled Bell. Forest wasn’t saying anything. Bell caught another glimpse of his face: and the laughter choked off inside her like a switch. She’d no idea he had such frightening eyes, huge, burning, burning into hers. His face still looked frozen, but the kind that usually indicates a tremendous anger. “You wrecked my picture.” he said. It was a very quiet, tight voice, but it was so deadly, and so scary, Bell started backing up. He was holding up a soggy piece of paper, on which among puddles of swimming color could be made out a strange and potent scene, now lost. “I’m sorry…I…I didn’t mean to…” she stammered. “You did mean to!” Forest roared. His voice, ever since he turned 16 recently, had suddenly been getting spasms of deepening. One hit now, so that his shout came out like a bullhorn. That was quite enough for Bell and she ran, screaming, around the island, Forest charging just behind her. She dodged through the pine trees; he knew them better than she did and cut her off. She raced around the huge oak, back and forth, and then back toward the house. Why did Mom have to choose now to go over to the neighbors’? Bell rounded the house. Forest was close behind. Really scared now, Bell jumped off the seawall and into the lake. She didn’t swim too far out. But when she looked back, her brother was standing on the wall, his eyes like twin candles. He grabbed a small rock and hurled it right at her. Bell screamed and started swimming in dead earnest, across the Narrows, hoping no boats were coming. A few more rocks followed the first. One struck a painful blow on her side, but she was nearly at Summer Rock by that time. When she could touch she looked back at the island. “You’ll be sorry when Mom gets home!” she yelled. Her brother said nothing. His eyes were the only thing alive in his face. Bell huddled her arms around her shoulders and felt miserable. What was so important about that stupid drawing, anyway? Was he going to stay there all evening to stone her if she tried swimming back? “Forest, I said I was sorry!” she shouted. “Can I come back over?” “No.” Bell snorted and dog-paddled along the rock. She could have some fun while she was stuck here, she guessed, and the rocks were good for jumping off. She stopped, surprised, and treaded water. An ancient rowboat, worn and mossy, was bobbing gently against the end of the rock. Arheled sat in it, fishing. “Climb in, Bell.” he said. “You look a little flagged.” She took his hand and found herself being slung over the side in a spray of water. She sat down hard on a seat of shrunken dark wood. Arheled pushed up the brim of his straw farmer’s hat and looked at her. “Forest was chasing me.” she complained. “And he threw rocks.” “Who has appointed me as judge over you?” he said, in a tone of cool rebuke. “Or are you perhaps mistaking me for your parents?” “Forest won’t let me back over.” “That is his matter, not mine.” said Arheled. “He will have to salvage his vision and recreate it on a new frame, but it will never be as potent as that first incarnation of it was. Pictures are perilous things, Bell. A book conjures up entire worlds woven with words of power; a picture is an eye opening into a world yet unknown. To destroy a picture—to close that eye forever—is an evil as bitter as felling a forest for foolish vain reasons.” “Oh.” whispered Bell. “Yes, I dare say you’re going to have a thorny time over there for a little while. It might even be a good idea to have Brooke take you to the beach. She needs the company. But come. I will row us up the lake.” Bell glanced over at Wintergreen Island as they sailed slowly by it. Forest walked along the seawall, glaring with smouldering eyes at the retreating boat. Bell gave a timid wave. “Never tread against the art of a sub-creator.” said Arheled somberly as he bent to his oars. “All else he may forgive, but never an injury to his creations.” “You mean…you mean he’ll never forgive me?” “He has forgotten how he grew up with you, as through the malice of our Foe you have forgotten him. To him you are a friend and a step-sister; it’s not like he grew up with you.” “I never knew he was like that. He’s always so quiet.” “Forest is deeper than you know, filled with secret fire and with strange power, and his eyes see true, as few others can. But when he is angry…I do not know what will happen, nor how long it may last. It may never die. It’s possible, with him. Do you know why your mother finally called your father?” “Old time’s sake?” “It was Forest.” said Arheled. “He forced her to. He made her afraid of him.” “My gosh. What did he do to her?” “He sat in judgement over her. He refused to forgive her for driving off Hunter until she married him.” “But he still stayed with her.” “He loved her, Bell. He does not love you, not yet; he hasn’t known you long enough. He only likes you. And likings can be quenched like that.” He snapped his fingers. Bell began to cry. “I always wanted a brother,” she sobbed, “and now I’ve lost one!” Arheled spun one oar suddenly and the ancient boat skipped sideways around a large motorboat that was bearing down far too near them. It thundered past. Bell expected the wake to toss them up and down or even capsize them, but the waves seemed to steer conveniently around the old rowboat. “Forest puts himself into that which he makes.” he said. “Every drawing from his hand is a fragment of his heart, and to injure it is to injure him. Even I cannot compel forgiveness.” “You mean he’ll always hate me?” “There is one way,” Arheled said slowly, as if thinking it out, “one way to make him forgive…” “What way?” “Ah, that’s my business, little Bell, my dilemma to ponder and my law to worry about. I may not overwhelm the will…and if I, as you would say, flex too much muscle, I risk that law.” “Are you a god?” Bell piped up. Arheled gave her an odd look. “I thought you were a Christian.” “Well, of course I didn’t mean a false god because those were all demons, but isn’t it true that there are beings that aren’t angels but were mistaken for and worshipped as God?” “Oh, you mean Thor and Athene and Poseidon and such.” he said. “Well, the answer is: no. I am not. It is true that the strange beings who command the winds and weathers have at times been worshipped. But if you think back a little you will see that Man is quite capable of making any gods he pleases. Or the contrary, making a god of himself. Men will worship anything, even themselves, and never more than today.” “I don’t see them making altars.” said Bell. The shore closed in around them as Second Narrows came to meet them. The strange splash and creak of Arheled’s oars and the sudden stiff, musky, honest smell of late chestnut blossom gave a queer keenness to the summer day. “Oh, the Wiccans do.” he answered. The roar of a large engine grew louder behind them. “You saw their altars on Temple Fell. Not very nice people to mix with—at least, beyond the surface.” “My teacher says at least they live in harmony with the earth.” “Harmony with the Earth.” sighed Arheled. “Man never lives in harmony with the earth until he returns to it. The closer to the rhythems of Nature he lives, the more he is at war with it. He does battle with every weed and thorn; every skunk, or fox, even deer and mice and the adorably cute flying squirrels become his mortal foes. The moment a man decides to grow crops or keep livestock, he finds himself at war against the earth. It is the artificial people who buy their food in stores and work in buildings who are at harmony with Nature, for they are too far removed from her to be considered any threat.” Behind him as he faced her a white prow was visible, coming straight for them. “Harmony with the Earth is an idle slogan, Bell, mouthed by those who resent the dominion Man was given over the earth. Matter is in rebellion against us; we must fight it in sheer self-defense.” “But you’re not human, Arheled.” “I walk in your shape,” he answered, “and I live as you live, when I have business here. And so unless I say it otherwise, matter rebels against me as well.” Music was growing louder, rising even above the roar of the engine, driving powerful music. The white prow loomed over their heads like a cliff. It was about to run them down. “Arheled!” Bell screamed. Arheled flicked the oars. Sideways on the waves danced the little boat. With a flash the white boat appeared in front of it, as close as before, about to run them down. Arheled lifted one eyebrow. Then he swung one oar with a single whirling motion, and a ramp of solid water appeared in front of them. The charging boat caromed off the ramp, deflected to one side, and roared past, coming to a swift and powerful stop. It had only one occupant, a tall striking beauty with a stringlike black bikini and black sunglasses against her golden tanned skin. Her gold hair blew about her. “I thought as much.” said Arheled. “You know I have enough power, Arheled, to take her from you.” the woman said. “I would advise you to head off.” “You are nowhere nearly powerful enough.” “Ah, but unlike you I am not afraid of showing off. I am not restrained by fear of impressing the people around me. Thus you are hampered…and I am free.” Fire burst from her hands. Fire burst from her body. Her suit flew up in pieces as she flaunted her full glory in Arheled’s face. Seeing it had absolutely no effect on him, any more than if he was a rock, she exploded. Fire imploded onto the boat, suddenly wallowing and swamped, and there sat a long green dragon with red wings. The dragon breathed. A beam of light, and fire, and magic mingled as one, blasted full upon the lifted hand of Arheled. Bell ducked, arms over her head. When she looked up, Arheled sat unmoved, the beam extinguishing on one hand. The dragon paused to inhale. Like a flash Arheled was gone. She held her blast, glancing all around, growing alarmed. Suddenly a blue light shone from underneath her boat. It wobbled. The dragon’s eyes rolled down. Then in a single flash the boat beneath it ceased to be. The dragon plunged into the water. Steam smoked up like a volcano. Bell leaned over the side. The water of the Long Lake was brown and darkish blue, and very deep, and flashing about in it like two great fish were the dragon, all glowing green and red, and something else that shone like a blue star, darting about too quickly to be seen well. “Arheled.” breathed Bell. Huge waves rose and crashed about. The Narrows boiled and churned; boiled hot, as well, for every wave smoked, and huge dirty mists were rising to choke off the sun. Unrocked by wave or whirlpool the ancient rowboat floated, as hills and spouting fountains leaped and burst around her. She heard faintly screams and the roar of crashing houses, and sirens wailing up from Winsted, and the frantic whistles of the lifeguards on the far side of First Bay. Suddenly Arheled was gone. The woman’s head burst above the surface, gasping. Although all around the water still fumed and tossed, the waves were quelling each other. Though the Narrow’s shores were only a couple hundred feet away, the brown fogs shut them off as if they were in the farthest seas. “Quick! Give me your hand!” she screamed. “I’m cooking alive in here!” Bell didn’t move, crouched in the boat, shrinking as far back as she could. “What’s wrong with you, girl? I’m dying in here! You have to help me!” “I don’t help dragons.” said Bell. The woman’s face snarled. It was amazing how demonic her beauty made her when she did. Then she was gripping the stern of the boat, heaving herself up. The boat of Arheled began to move. With a suddenness that wrenched the dragon’s hand from the thwarts it shot through the boiled water without a motor at a speed that made Bell gasp. The fogs behind them burst apart. Naked, the woman rose half out of the water, and from where her bottom should have been a dragon’s tail lashed, propelling her with fishlike speed in pursuit. Flames roared in her hands. Faster and faster raced the battered old boat, zipping around capsized vessels and stranded swimmers holding to wreckage. Out of the fog loomed broken docks and muddy banks: they had gone too far. The boat frantically swerved around and sped back in a great loop. Suddenly the woman appeared in the back. Bell had barely time to draw in breath for a scream, when the woman’s scorching arms were around her, and they vanished again. Ronnie Wendy biked up the Still River Turnpike, not in any particular hurry. It was way too nice out for that. He loved these days in middle summer, when the air was pleasant and warm, but incredibly luminous, almost lucid. It was as if the sun overhead was pouring into it, filling the air with brilliance, with white light as thick as unseen water. Light filled the valley, the trees, the road under him. Green and blue and grey and white its’ colors shone: blue sky, with marvelous clouds like the floors of ancient ships, green-white woods and swamp and bushes, white fluttering on their surface and drenching the trees, grey road and stones. “Funny how we always speak and think of the Sun as yellow.” he said aloud. Ronnie often talked to himself. “And yet if it ever was yellow, that is long ago gone from it, squeezed out like a crushed orange. White it is now.” He began pedaling up Mountain Rd from the upper Burrville junction, up to the Lake. Pines grew thick, and here and there houses opened up. He climbed for a long way, until he reached the downhill to the shore road and Highland Lake. Turning left he coasted down past close-set cabins on a small hill, around the tip of a ragged cove that petered into swampy isles and pools, which terminated the Lake on the south. A patch of woods opened on the right, to match the unbroken woods on the left: part of Platt Hill State Park, public land which probably got stolen by the state way back when. It was a pleasant little place, though, a wooded point of rocky coast at the southernmost tip of Third Bay. Paths ran through the level wood to beaches of shoal or sand, or open bays in the shore where fishermen could cast off. At the tip a rocky knoll rose maybe forty feet high under the oaks, its’ sides falling steeply into the lake. On the north it faced a shallow bay full of deep channels among great sunken round rocks; on the east, a level-floored cove, the far side a mass of docks and cottages. The houses down this end had been damaged severely, but not enough to render all of them uninhabitable. Already repairs were beginning. The cabins on the higher ground had survived intact. The devastation around Sucker Brook lay to the north, around a shoulder of land, though the bare skull of Club Island was dimly visible. Life on the lake had resumed its’ regular routines, though always with a sort of subdued feeling as though in perpetual commemoration of the disaster. Ronnie changed in the trees. He was here for one reason, primarily: the steep shore was fringed with large blueberry bushes, the twisted reddish stems and dense mats of short close twigs leaning far out over the water. Accordingly the only way to harvest them was to wade, often chest-deep, among the sunken rocks. Ronnie put on some old shoes—last year he’d gotten a cut from broken glass here—and floundered in. The water felt warm and gorgeous. He noticed a couple of boats were moored in the bay, rocking while their owners took a plunge or lay around on deck. The closer one was large and ritzy, but it seemed to have only one occupant, a striking young woman of Ronnie’s age in a black string bikini. It made her look flagrant and immodest and attractive beyond measure. Ronnie with a start focused his attention on the first berry bush. It was old but quite fruitful, the stems making a weird contorted zigzag as they reached out like splayed hands. Last year the berries had been tiny, but all the rain had swollen them to the size of peas. The great waves had torn at their roots, but the bushes were old and powerful and made it through more or less unscathed. Ronnie floundered about, slipping on the submerged rocks and trying to bend down the higher branches. It was only when he heard the rich ringing laughter of a woman that he realized how comical he must look. A glance showed him the gold-haired beauty on the yacht was leaning on the nearest railing and laughing as she watched. He gave a wry grin. “What on earth are you doing?” she called over. “Picking blueberries,” Ronnie retorted, “And putting on a one-man comedy.” She laughed even harder. “I can barely hear you.” she said, coming down the steps to the stern. “Oh, heck, I’m all hot anyway.” and she plunged in. Her hair looked a lot darker when wet. A few strong strokes carried her to a boulder a few yards offshore, and she mounted onto it in a smooth movement like a mermaid. Her suit scarcely restrained her firm generous breasts, and Ronnie thought he’d never seen a woman so beautiful. She had a stately, rather laid-back face, with startling, brilliant eyes, a pale burning blue, like Brooke’s but brighter. She never looked him in the eye, however, so it was difficult to tell. Looking at him she smiled. “Now I’m wet.” she said. “Ooh, this water is lovely. What were you saying?” “I said I was picking blueberries. And putting on a one-man show.” She threw back her head and laughed. “It was a good one.” she said. “I’ve never seen anyone do that before. Picking, I mean. Is it hard?” “Not exactly. I simply have to bend down all these high branches while trying not to spill anything.” “Can I help?” Ronnie looked at this gorgeous woman and felt a little dizzy. “Sure.” It was a fun experience. The woman—who called herself Cam, after some giggling—was careless and brash but enjoyable, as well of course as being very appealing. Ronnie felt attracted to her as he seldom had been. They laughed as they waded waist-deep picking the dark-blue berries, waves chuckling the warm water about them. Once or twice he splashed her, for the heck of it and to see the beads of water on her skin. She invited him on board her boat, so they swam out to it and Cam got on first. Ronnie thought he had never seen a sight as lovely as her gleaming golden back rising from the water, naked save for a black line across it. She reached down her hand to help him up, and although he needed no help he took it anyway. The lake vanished. An iron, appalling cold smote him. He choked, and tried to breathe, but the air itself seemed to freeze in his lungs. A great chamber lay below him, lit by a strange white-blue pillar of frozen light. Black against it stood seven tall pillars like impossibly long thrones and in the thick blueish mist that drifted and eddied about the floor lay something huge and complicated and coiled, a scaley blue and purple like the berries they had picked. Cam was still holding his hand. She turned around and showed him her naked eyes. Blue, startling, huge and compelling. Dragon’s eyes. Their wills strove for a moment, dragon-spell against Ronnie’s power to reveal; and then she looked away, smiling. “You are good.” she said, half-admiringly. “Let me see—how are we going to do this, I wonder? I could just put you to sleep—or I could seduce you, but I think you’re a little too strong a Catholic to succumb easily to that method.” “I’m flattered,” said Ronnie, trying to breathe slowly. “What is this place?” “Cold getting you down, is it.” she said. “Well, if I leave you here long enough we should have some very interesting results. Let me get you some company, just to be absolutely sure.” Then the dragon Cam vanished from the chamber. She was back in about ten minutes, somewhat out of breath, and holding fast a young girl with curly yellow hair in a green and blue one-piece. Bell. “That was a little harder than I expected.” she panted. Only then did Ronnie notice that she now wore nothing at all. “The old man can put up quite a fight, even with his Rules binding him. So convenient, really, when good men tie themselves up for us. Why, Ron honey, you seem a little cold.” Ronnie, whose entire body was shaking, could not even think sufficiently to answer. His mind was consumed by cold. The core of his being was wrapped around his struggling flesh. “Who are you?” Bell screamed. Camilla changed. Her shapely backside elongated into a sinuous tail. Her torso stretched, swallowing her breasts, and she reeled and fell onto the floor, and her face stretched and distorted, and her golden skin became scaley and green, and there crouched a great green and red dragon, with sarcastic and slightly feminine features, smiling at the shivering pair. “When any of the Children of the Road are in danger, they will find themselves together.” Camilla’s voice, like her old and yet larger and somehow more scorching, echoed in the frozen room. “Or so it is said. And as the cold in here will prove fatal to you in another ten minutes, let us hope, for your sakes, it is true.” Ronnie, curled into a tight ball, barely heard her. His bathing suit was solid ice. Ice coated his formerly wet skin, which in places was becoming an awful purplish blue. He shook no longer. A great numbness and weariness crept inwards upon him. There was a slight thump and Brooke stumbled forward on the icy surface. She was wearing shorts and a dirty shirt, for Mom had been after her to weed the garden and she’d finally surrendered. Then another thump, and Travel Lane was there, in a sitting position (she’d been reading), falling over with a crash. Then Forest, and last of all Lara, who alone showed no sign of being affected by the cold. “So good to see you all here.” the dragon said. A twitch of her claw chained Travel in place with a spell. “No, honey, you’re not taking them anywhere. And you, Lara, before you make yourself the Cold, consider the state of your friends. Ronnie there is at the point of death. The others will follow soon. Nor can you save them until you do what I ask.” “What do you want?” said Lara. “Release the Father of the Dragons.” “I cannot.” said Lara. The dragon stared at her for a moment, considering. Then she glanced at the others, teleporting them to the far side of the chamber, where Lara could not help them. “No, really, I can’t.” said Lara quickly. “I don’t know what I did. I don’t know how I did it.” “I can see that, honey.” sighed the dragon. “But the problem is, you’re going to have to. It may be a matter of instinct. Think. And think quickly, because I will not allow you to thaw your friends until you do.” With a flash Lara went blue and ice all over. Her eyes gleamed like diamonds. “I put this chamber under the Road. I do not know how to send it back.” “Then remove the cold.” said the dragon. “You are it and it is you. It will listen.” Lara was gleaming all over now, a queer sparkling light coming from her skin and eyes. There was a hiss as the deathly mist and iron cold vanished from the air, and from the chamber, and from the bodies of all within it. “Well done, little Star.” the dragon said, a mocking light in her eyes. “He will take some time to thaw out, but I’m sure he will be grateful.” “But I am not.” said Lara Midwinter. Her rather blank, plain face was alight with a glare that gave her a strange unearthly beauty. The starlight sparkled from her flesh and flamed from her eyes. “Where are my friends?” “Upon the Thrones, where you will join them.” the dragon smiled. Instantly a beam of light shot out of Lara’s eyes, cold light, light and cold mingled. The dragon, startled, met it with a blast of flame. The cold ate the blast, beating it down and advancing up it’s path in a second, until it struck the dragon’s eyes. The dragon screamed, clapping one paw over its’ face, or what it could reach thereof. Travel and the others suddenly appeared before them. “Hello, Mother.” Travel said through her teeth. “You didn’t strap us in very well. I have been learning how to Travel.” The dragon whirled one claw. Magic crackled in the air. But it struck too late. Even as the spell was cast, the chamber vanished around them. A road of ancient stones of mildewed marble lay before them under a cold rain that did not wet them, though the ruined carvings dripped from the rails of trellised stone on either side. Everything around was a shapeless grey wetness. The sound of faint sad singing drifted by as on the wind, mingling with the sad stony patter of the rain on unseen rocks. “What the…?” the dragon exclaimed. “You had better undo that spell you cast on her,” said Ronnie grimly, “or all of us will be stuck here for an eternity. I doubt your teleporting powers can extricate us from the bowels of the Road itself.” Defeat glared in the dragon’s eyes. “Fine.” she snapped and twitched one claw. Travel sat up, gasping. The eerie landscape vanished, replaced by a wood of tall oaks, under bright warm sunlight. It was hot, almost stuffy beneath the trees. The warm green of the world they knew was so cheering to the Children that they all relaxed and laughed. “I don’t see,” Camilla hissed, “what is so funny.” They all spun around. In her pain she had been unable to retain her grip on dragon’s shape, and she was rapidly shrinking into human form. Still naked she sprawled on the grass, one hand clenched over her eyes. She removed it slowly, blinking painfully at them, a baleful stoniness in her stare. “Mother.” said Travel Lane. “Get up. Shapeshift yourself some clothes. Stop embarrassing yourself.” “Honey,” sighed Camilla Lane, “I’m not your mother any longer. I haven’t been your mother for seven years. I think I told you that before.” Like a flash she transformed back to dragon-shape. “I am dragon now!” With a cry water erupted out of Brooke, full into the dragon’s mouth. It went up in steam as a fire-blast slowly forced it back. Then a beam of cold light came from Lara even as Travel began teleporting the fire of her mother in another direction. The dragon reeled. “Quite impressive.” said Mrs. Lane, teleporting to a distance. “But I have other powers besides fire.” She vanished. Fire blasted at them from behind. They staggered, screaming with pain. Mrs. Lane appeared among them, her tail lashing. Lara hit a stone and slumped to the ground. Brooke was thrown through the air and lay still. Travel lay whimpering on the ground, blood on her shirt. “It looks like you two are the last ones left.” said Mrs. Lane, advancing upon them. “I am afraid so,” said Arheled, stepping out of the shadows. “Well, well, look who’s here.” the dragon smiled. “But if you think a light-show is going to drive me away, you have another thought coming. I caught Bell despite your best efforts. You are bound, old man, bound by your own rules. You cannot manifest the power that is needed to overcome me.” “Then I shall deprive you of yours.” said Arheled. “Oh really? Will you call down the Road, perhaps? Or work a little exorcism to take away my magic? You are no priest. Don’t make me laugh, Arheled. Threaten all you want, in front of mortals you are helpless.” The ground began to creak underneath them. The sun went out as mighty clouds began to gather from seemingly nowhere, and the forest grew dark. Still Arheled could be seen, his form slowly growing, rising, taller and more fair and terrible than they had ever seen him. Light began to break from him. “Children of the Road, '' cover your eyes!''” Such authority was in his voice they instinctively obeyed, even Lara and Brooke in their pain. What then happened none could ever say. A blinding blue light was all around, squeezing past their fingers and making their hands transparent of flesh. They felt pressure as if the air was being sucked from their lungs. They fell, groveling into the dirt to escape the alienness of the power that was around them, that crushed breath and soul with its’ unlikeness, its’ strength, its’ utter alien nature. Trees around them fell with terrifying slowness, shattered by the sheer power that was radiating from the being they knew as Arheled, revealed in his majesty. A huge hand of blue flame gripped the lashing serpent, inexorably lifting it into the air. Blue power burst from the hand. Blue fire burnt the dragon from her like ash, until he cast her, naked and smoking, in human form upon the ground. “You are free now, Camilla Lane.” said Arheled. “Put this on.” Carefully the Children of the Road took away their hands from their eyes and got up from the leaves. They stood in a glade of bright hot sun. Trees had been plowed up by the roots and shivered as if by a bomb: but a blue bomb. Bark and wood was seared a charcoal that instead of black was deep pure turquoise. The Man in Brown stood in the middle, holding out a beautiful gown of shimmering chestnut. “You are not a dragon now.” he said “Come.” “Kill me.” said Mrs. Lane. “No.” said Arheled. “You say I’m free.” she spat. “No dragon is ever free. Even when we die,” her voice fell to a whisper, “he can call us back. Didn’t you know, no dragon really dies? He can find us, even when we cast him off; he is our Father, we can never be free of him.” She gripped his knees. “If you want me to be free of him, then kill me! Kill me now while I am repentant, and my soul will have a chance to escape him. But if I live, and my Father calls, no power will keep me from obeying.” She began to weep, harshly, bitterly. A great dreary pity filled Arheled’s stern face. “If that is what you truly want, Camilla Lane, then I grant you your wish.” Placing one hand on her head, he made on her the Sign of the Cross. “Be at peace.” For a moment, on her exposed legs a queer blue-purple stain could be seen, spreading up the smooth flesh. Then the chestnut-brown gown appeared upon her, rich and satiny, draping her with a beauty and a glory far greater than she had wielded even with dragon-glamour. She sat up, a ravaged peace on her statuesque face. Travel came over, cautiously, looking into her eyes. “Mother?” The eyes of Camilla Lane were no longer a dragon’s eyes, but a soft watery blue, sad and tired. “Darling.” she said brokenly. “I’m so sorry.” “Mother!” cried Travel, gripping her in a fierce embrace. “Goodbye, my little girl.” said Mrs. Lane, returning the embrace, but with difficulty, as if her arms could barely move. “Goodbye? But why, mother? I just found you again…” “I am dying, Travel.” whispered Mrs. Lane, her arms limp, leaning upon her daughter. “I asked for this. Seven years of slavery. At last it is gone.” “Mother…” sobbed Travel.” “I loved you, Travel.” breathed Mrs. Lane. “Goodbye…” Her body sagged heavily upon her daughter. Travel lifted her up. There was no life in the half-closed eyes. A great peace and relief filled her dead face. Blue light was playing about her now, and even as Travel frantically felt her heart, she crumbled into blue ash, and blew away upon the wind. “May she rest in peace.” said Arheled. “You—you just '' killed '' her? Just like that?!” shouted Travel. “She was my mother! I lost her for seven years! And you took her!” “It was her wish.” said Arheled. “And just who gives you the right to—“ Blue light flashed for an instant in the eyes of Arheled, and the terrible memory of his tremendous majesty made her suddenly fall silent. “She was a witch, and worse than witch.” he said sternly. “Much of what she did, though she did it enslaved, she did it willing. I burnt her mind free, and she repented. The fate I gave her was merciful.” Back to Arheled